


love always wakes the dragon.

by redhoods



Series: fictober 2019. [4]
Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, M/M, Pre-Relationship, linhardt's somehow part of The Family, spoilers about rhea et all
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-04
Updated: 2019-10-04
Packaged: 2020-12-01 20:51:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,472
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20895689
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redhoods/pseuds/redhoods
Summary: There’s a pale, slender foot sticking out of the foliage, almost glowing in the moonlight that’s permeating this small circle clearing of the dense tree canopies.“Alright, that’s not creepy at all,” Caspar declares to no one as he reaches out.His hand is trembling so he curls his fingers into a fist and scoots closer on his butt through the underbrush. “Please don’t be a dead body, please don’t be a dead body, please don’t be a dead body,” he chants to himself, this under his breath as he tries reaching out again, brushing plants and underbrush and leaves away.





	love always wakes the dragon.

**Author's Note:**

> fictober day 4 is dark forest.
> 
> listen i've been thinking about this au for days now and i had to write _something_. i might write more for it at a later point.
> 
> also i used they/them pronouns for linhardt.
> 
> title's from a richard siken poem. it's very on the nose and i'm damn proud of it.

“It’s fine! It’s just a forest! A creepy forest! That’s suddenly very dark! I’m not lost! This is great! I can fight any beasties that are in here!”

Caspar’s just about got himself pumped up enough to continue his trek through the forest, his “shortcut” back to the monastery, when he trips over something hidden in the foliage of the forest floor and goes sprawling out on his belly, face first into the leaves and twigs and dirt.

Rolling over, he spits onto the ground, scrubs at his tongue with the back of his hand, “Eugh, gotta stop telling people to eat dirt, that’s just cruel,” he mutters, touching the sides of his now tender nose to make sure it’s not too damaged.

Then pushes himself to sit up to see what he tripped over.

Or...

Who?

There’s a pale, slender foot sticking out of the foliage, almost glowing in the moonlight that’s permeating this small circle clearing of the dense tree canopies. 

“Alright, that’s not creepy at all,” Caspar declares to no one as he reaches out.

His hand is trembling so he curls his fingers into a fist and scoots closer on his butt through the underbrush. “Please don’t be a dead body, please don’t be a dead body, please don’t be a dead body,” he chants to himself, this under his breath as he tries reaching out again, brushing plants and underbrush and leaves away.

Slowly.

That foot is—thankfully—connected to a pale ankle, then he finds cloth, a little dirty, but still holding together. He follows slowly, carefully, finds a torso, pauses there. There’s a heartbeat under his palm, slow and even, “What in the fu-flames?”

The next thing he finds is a long, pale throat.

And then under a tangle of flowers he’s never seen before, a delicate face, lax and soft with...

“Are you _sleeping_?” Caspar asks the still sleeping person incredulously, trying to brush the flowers away. Until he realizes that the flowers are growing from their hair, the sleeping person’s very deep green hair. Like a bed of wildflowers or something.

It sorta makes him think of Seteth’s hair, in a way.

Their ears are pointed, he realizes with a start as he brushes away an impossibly orange blossom, like somehow pointy ears are the weirdest thing about all of this. It’s never been said that he’s got great priorities, like everyone might be onto something, because now he’s just—

Sitting on his butt in the middle of a creepy forest, appreciating the beauty of a sleeping stranger with pointy ears.

He wishes there were someone sensible here to tell him what to do, but he’s not sure who he’d count as sensible of the people he knows. “Who falls asleep in the middle of the forest?” He asks aloud and reaches out to gently shake their shoulder. 

“Wake up, the forest is no place for a beauty nap,” he sing songs to them.

And then their eyelashes flutter, finally, and there are two big blue eyes peering at him from amidst the flowers. Caspar startles even though this is what he was trying to make happen, tipping back in the dirt, “Uh, hey there, buddy.”

They yawn, a huge, jaw splitting thing, before they push up on an elbow, “Oh, hello.”

“You were sleeping in a forest,” Caspar blurts nonsensically, because they’re even prettier awake and their voice is soothing, “Did you plan to do that?”

A smile pulls at their lips, corners tipping up just enough, and they reach up, combing fingers through their hair, causing flowers to come loose and pool around them on the forest floor, “A little rest never hurt anybody.”

Caspar blinks even though his heart is doing weird acrobatics in his chest like he’s seen Felix doing in the training grounds, “In the middle of a forest?”

“Mhm,” they start stretching out various parts of their body, like they’re talking count, “Might I ask: what year is it?” And then, they reach into the plants around them and produce a book, also seemingly untouched by all the plants.

“Year?” Caspar asks incredulously, “Uh, 1180?”

Then they stand and more flowers shake loose from their clothes and hair, drifting down slowly to the forest floor. “1180?” They hum again, tilting their head this way and that until their hair is covering their pointy ears which is a shame, “I don’t suppose you know the direction of Garreg Mach?”

He’s staring, he knows he is, he can’t stop. This is the weirdest thing to have ever happened to him, not that there’s a lot of competition, “Sure do!” Because what could go wrong with taking a stranger he just found sleeping in the forest back to the monastery? Certainly not much. “That’s where I was headed when I tripped over you. Literally.”

“Oh, terribly sorry about that,” they say, not sounding particularly sorry or bothered, walking through the dense underbrush like it’s nothing, like they aren’t barefoot.

Caspar scrambles to get up and follow them, trying to reorient himself to going the right direction, to find that they’re already headed the correct way. “Hey, so, what’s your name anyways?” He asks, cause he’s got some manners deep down and also he really wants to know their name.

For no particular reason.

This seems to catch them off guard and they halt for like three whole seconds before carrying on, “Linhardt,” they say and Caspar realizes they’re taller than he is.

“I’m Caspar,” he replies as they suddenly break out of the thick and onto the path that he had been unable to find in his earlier stumblings. He hopes they’re going the right direction now that he’s really thinking about it.

“It is nice to meet you, Caspar,” Linhardt sounds so calm, so serene. They’ve got a nice voice, the sort of voice that Caspar could listen to for ages.

Even if they were carrying on about boring things like Professor Hanneman always was.

They walk in silence for as long as Caspar can stand it, which is to say, they walk for about three minutes before he jogs up to keep pace with Linhardt’s long strides, “So! Do you know anyone at the monastery?”

The gaze that Linhardt gives him isn’t what he expects, the quelling ‘would you please be quiet’ he’s so used to, but more curiosity. Sleepy curiosity. “I might,” they say and yawn again, “It’s hard to be sure,” they add. Which makes no sense.

Nothing about this makes sense.

They stop suddenly and reach out, clapping a palm to his chest with deceptive strength, pushing him behind them, “Who’s there?”

Caspar frowns at their back, confused about who it is they’re talking to, as nothing answers for what feels like a small forever, until a twig snaps to his right and he watches a bandit edge out onto the path towards them.

Not just one, he realizes, but several.

They’re outnumbered.

Caspar turns to put his back towards Linhardt’s, not wanting to leave a bandit unwatched as he reaches for the axe on his back.

“Ah, ah, don’t do anything stupid,” one of the bandits takes one step forward, levers a bow right at his chest, so he brings his hands up to his front, holding them out. He doesn’t feel like getting skewered out here.

However, he still bursts out a laugh before he can stop himself, “Oh man. This is great.”

That makes the bandit frown at him like he’s lost his mind and he can feel Linhardt shifting at his back, “What is wrong with you?”

Caspar shakes his head, wiggles his fingers, “You’re trying to rob me,” he says around laughter, chest shaking with it, “I haven’t got a thing worth stealing. Not even a single gold.” He might be a bit hysterical, it’s been a very weird day.

An elbow hits him in the middle of the back so he reigns himself in, “Sorry, sorry, commence with the robbery.”

“I don’t think these gentlemen are going to rob us,” Linhardt says, very passively, placidly, like he gets robbed everyday or something.

The bandits all look at each other incredulously and Caspar can’t blame them. “And why’s that?” The one that’d stepped forward with a bow asks, seemingly the leader of this little band of idiots. Bandiots. Banidiots. 

He digresses.

“Because I would very much so hate to start a forest fire.”

Caspar can’t be blamed for the way he barks out an incredulous, “What?!” at the same time as the leader dude with a bow.

And then there’s a flare of magic and one of the bandits is shouting and furiously patting at his clothes and then a second is on fire and then there’s a strange burst of pain like fire in his chest that has Caspar wheezing out a laugh as he watches the bandits scrambling off into the forest shouting.

It takes him a minute to realize the pain isn’t going away, is a real pain and he looks down to see an arrow embedded in his right shoulder, “Oh,” he says stupidly, wrapping his hand around the shaft of it, “ow.”

Linhardt comes into view in front of him, eyebrows pulled together and frowning, “Ah, terribly sorry about that,” he says, actually sounding sorry about it this time.

“You’re way too pretty to be frowning like that,” Caspar says and he’ll blame it on the pain, his face heating as he redirects his gaze hurriedly to the arrow. He inhales, exhales, inhales again and yanks. Thankfully the arrow hadn’t been very deep and comes loose with one tug.

“Oh, that’s a lot of blood,” Linhardt says, somehow paler and sounding a little faint, which is ridiculous, Caspar’s the one injured.

They bring a hand up though and it’s too telling that Caspar doesn’t flinch away like he probably should after that display, but they only hover over the wound and soft pale light pours from their hand and the wound starts pulling together.

He crunches his face, “Thanks, buddy,” he says and rolls his right shoulder a few times, “feels good as new.”

And Linhardt yawns right in his face, “You are very welcome and I am very tired.” Their eyes even start fluttering closed, like they’re going to fall asleep right there standing. They have very long eyelashes that are also very pretty.

Caspar clears his throat, finds he’s got no words, but it’s okay because then Linhardt tips forward, face tilting into his neck and then they’re asleep. Just like that. Asleep, standing up, leaning against Caspar, their face in his neck.

“Well, okay,” Caspar says and he’s not going to just stop here, in case those bandits come back this way, so he stoops down and scoops Linhardt up with an arm under their knees. They’re lighter than they look, even if they do have several inches on him, he’s just got to be very careful not to knock their head or feet off of anything.

No sweat, as long as he sticks to the path.

Actually, it’s not so bad when he gets going, Linhardt’s breath fans warm and light across his neck and jaw, and it’s gotta be great exercise to carry someone like this. The only downside is that there’s no one to listen to him prattle on.

Which is probably a good thing, if he’s being honest, cause his topic keeps circling back around to Linhardt, to how strange and beautiful and strangely beautiful they are.

Time seems to warp strangely or maybe he’s just that unaware of its passing while it’s still dark in the forest, but when he crosses out of the forest and back into the rolling hills he’s more familiar with, the moon still seems high in the sky. The monastery is there though, large and imposing and closer than he’d thought.

He only stops to give his arms a break and to drink some water, make sure Linhardt’s still breathing, then lifts them up again and keeps walking. The idea of camping out in these hills without anything to properly camp feels like inviting trouble and he’s already going to be late enough getting back as it is. They’ll never let him do anything by himself again.

Linhardt starts stirring again when they make it to the village outside the monastery proper and Caspar’s a little thankful for that, he’s not sure he wants to try explaining this to a bunch of strangers. They can explain themself if they so wish.

Except when they reach the gates, Seteth is standing there waiting, arms crossed over his chest.

Caspar hesitates, hedges, rubbing the back of his neck, and watches incredulously as Linhardt walks right up to him, leans real close to his face—

“Your beard looks ridiculous.”

—then walks right by him into the village.

Seteth looks from Linhardt’s retreating form and back to him and Caspar just shrugs a little wildly at him, “I just found them sleeping in the forest.”

“Sleeping in the forest,” Seteth says slowly and then sighs heavily, “Come along then, you must be starving.”

And that’s that. Caspar’s not about to look too closely at whatever this is, because he is actually starving and his shoulders and back are a little sore and he doesn’t actually want to lose sight of Linhardt.

\-----

The next day when Caspar’s sprawled in the courtyard, running a whetstone over the blade of his axe in methodical passes, Linhardt shows up.

They’re in different clothes now, clean ones that look like the sort of thing Lady Rhea wears, but simpler. Still barefoot though. “Hello, Caspar,” they say and sink next to him in the grass.

“Hey, Linhardt, was beginning to think I’d just dreamt you up,” he says, before he thinks about it, and turns his face away as he internally curses at himself. His face and ears are hot and he nearly drops the whetstone as he tries to come up with some better bluster to cover up the first.

Next to him though, Linhardt only laughs, a soft, rasp of sound, “I am very real, I’m afraid.”

Still not looking at them, Caspar swallows and puts his whetstone down before he ends up hurting himself. “I’m, uh, glad you are,” he mumbles in a rush, then startles when something touches his thigh, looks down to see that Linhardt is using his leg as a pillow.

“And I am glad it was you that found me,” they say and then yawn, “I’m going to nap now. Goodnight, Caspar.”

He blinks at their profile, “Uh, goodnight, Linhardt.” There aren’t any flowers in their hair any longer so Caspar only feels a little weird about running his fingers through it.

They hum a quiet sound, “Oh, that’s very nice,” and then they’re asleep.

**Author's Note:**

> i'm @vowofenmity on twitter


End file.
